Twelve

By midnight the Essex Motel had become a blazing sideshow. The door to every room stood open with all the lights inside glaring garishly. At least ten people moved back and forth between the office and a particular room in the center of the motel, Jim Leland and Sheriff Buck Henry among them. The elderly motel manager, who looked more dazed than shocked, kept repeating his story to anyone who passed him on the sidewalk. How he didn’t see or hear anything, he usually closed up about six or so and retired to the end room where he lived, how at about nine o’clock he went down to the office to get a book he’d left there, he loved reading those Mickey Spillane novels. Also he had to shut off the coffeepot in the office. Yes, he heard the detective’s car pull in, he thought it was maybe seven or seven-thirty, wasn’t even dark out yet. Anyhow, later when he went back to the office to get his book and do something about the coffeepot, the coffee was still hot so he decided to go ask Mr. Brockhurst if he wanted a cup. The detective was the only guest so far this summer. He knocked on the SLED agent’s door, he knocked and knocked but nobody answered. So finally he got the pass key to see if the man was sick or something. Then he found him. “That nice young fella just a-laying there in a pool of blood.”

Jim Leland, who had heard all the details already, nodded at the manager again and walked on down to Lou Brockhurst’s room. The SLED agent’s prone form still lay on the floor, now covered with a sleazy polyester bedspread. The lab team from Ashton County swarmed around the room like greedy buzzards, picking at the entrails of the carpet and the bed, dusting the furniture for prints, looking for anything they could take away. Outside, Sheriff Henry, who had finished going over the room, headed for Brockhurst’s car and Jim turned to follow him, unconsciously tapping the pistol at his belt which he’d begun wearing regularly this spring. The cold-blooded murder of a police detective had made an impression on Jim that even the grotesque slaying of Sarah Rothenbarger had not. “This is too much,” he had exclaimed to Stoney earlier. “A guy comes to town, a SLED agent no less, and he gets murdered like this is Chicago or New York City. Something’s gonna be done about this—I swear it is.”

Stoney didn’t say anything. Jim had called him earlier that evening, after the motel manager had called the police chief. Jim hadn’t been able to locate Ed Hammond so he’d telephoned Stoney in an attempt to find the medical examiner. Finally Ed had arrived and had examined the body and his initial conclusion was that Lou Brockhurst had been knocked unconscious before his throat was cut with the single slash of a knife. Hard to say what kind of knife yet. Except for the abrasion on the right temple and the one knife wound, there were almost no other marks on the body. Brockhurst had apparently been attacked upon entering the room and, judging from its condition, the struggle had only lasted a few seconds. Whatever hit Brockhurst must have belonged to the killer, because nothing in the room was small enough and heavy enough to have left such a bruise.

Stoney stood in the doorway of the room. Was J. T. Turner big enough to overpower Brockhurst? Was Leonard? Yeah, Leonard could easily have taken Brockhurst; the SLED agent did have a bad leg. But was Leonard stupid enough to kill a policeman? To invite that kind of investigation? For now, surely, something would be done about both murders. Hopefully before anyone else got hurt.

An hour later Stoney drove back to town, but instead of going home, he drove on to the town hall. Despite the late hour, it too was awash in light. Most of the activity, he saw as he entered the unlocked front door, was coming from inside the police chief’s office. When Stoney got to the door marked CONSTABLE, he heard the ingratiating voice of Heyward Rutherford.

“This was a great town once. Now we’ve got two murders on our hands. Two. It’s high time you started acting like you’re a policeman. It’s time you started doing your job. You can be a great man now if you just apply yourself.”

Jim Leland, seated behind his desk, jumped up angrily. “Heyward, would you quit saying that? I don’t want to hear one more goddamn thing about how great everything is.”

Heyward rose primly. “My point remains. You are responsible for cleaning this mess up.”

Stoney walked in the room just as Jim shot back, “Heyward, maybe you oughta tell us how bad you wanted Sarah’s store.”

Everyone in the room looked up. Bill Jenkins, who was sitting on the other side of the room reading the report on Lou Brockhurst, stared at the two men, then glanced at Stoney and lifted his eyebrows slightly. They waited for Heyward to respond.

“You can’t possibly mean what you’re suggesting,” the silver-haired town council president said to Jim slowly, weighing each syllable.

Bill Jenkins stood up. “Is there anything you wouldn’t do for money?”

Heyward looked from Bill back to Jim and then turned to stare at Stoney. “Y’all think I could kill Sarah just to get the store?”

“Heyward, it’s not that we—”

The older man cut Jim off. He stared again at each person in the room, one at a time. “What now? Treat every man in this town as a suspect, require everyone in Essex to provide an alibi, trust no one? Is this where we are now? I do have a lot of money, I am a wily negotiator, so of course I could kill Sarah with my bare hands?”

Heyward turned and stalked out. Jim Leland stared after him for a moment, then slammed his fist down on his desk. In a moment he opened a desk drawer and took a key out of an envelope. Crossing in front of Bill Jenkins, he strode to the gun cabinet on the other side of the room and unlocked it and drew out a Winchester shotgun. He pulled open a small drawer in the bottom of the gun cabinet and took out several shells, broke the barrel of the shotgun, loaded it, and then snapped it shut so hard the metal chamber rattled.

Stoney walked toward Jim. “What about J. T. Turner?”

Jim crossed back to his desk, the shotgun under his arm with the practiced ease of a hunter. “Buck called from Ashboro a few minutes ago. They went to pick him up but couldn’t find him. Cleared out of that rooming house he was staying in this afternoon. Gone. APB being put out right now.”

“Have you—” Stoney hesitated, then went on, “have you considered Leonard?”

Bill Jenkins looked up. “Are you serious?”

Jim turned and glared at Stoney. “Didn’t you hear anything Heyward said at all?”

“Heyward and Leonard are two different people.”

“Are they? Heyward’s lived here forever. Leonard’s been gone a few years. Just like you.” Jim sighed. “Give me one hard reason to suspect Leonard, one shred of evidence.”

When Stoney didn’t respond, Jim said, “Leave Leonard alone then. Brockhurst questioned him and even he didn’t find anything.” Jim paused, then added, “Somebody’s killing people around here, and it’s scary how different the murders are—no pattern, nothing to go on. And right away you suspect people we’ve all known a long time—Heyward, Leonard. What about Maum Chrish?”

Jim headed toward the door. “I’ve got to go see about a warrant. Help yourselves to the coffee.”

After he left, Stoney went over and poured himself a cup of coffee; maybe Jim and Heyward were right. Desperation was making them turn on each other. It was almost three now. Did Anna get home all right? Of course she did. Did he leave her a note? He had run out of the house in such a hurry when Jim called he couldn’t remember. Anna would be okay; she was not afraid to be alone. He loved that in her, loved her strength and resilience. But he knew he should get on home; he was scheduled to meet with his supervisor in Columbia tomorrow at ten. His whole future might rest on that meeting and so it was imperative that he be alert, rested, clear-headed.

Bill Jenkins, who was still reading on the other side of the room, stood up and stretched. “You going home?”

“I should,” Stoney said. “Anna’s been out of town, I haven’t even seen her since she got back.” A pause. “Who’s the warrant for?”

“One for Turner, one for Maum Chrish.”

“He’s really going to arrest her?” Stoney stared at Bill. “I never figured Leland for a bigot.”

Jenkins rubbed his ample belly like he’d forgotten to eat dinner. “I don’t think this has to do with the color of her skin, Stoney. She’s really been a suspect all along. I think Leland’s afraid he should have brought her in weeks ago, that maybe if he had Brockhurst wouldn’t be dead.”

“You really think she lay in wait at the motel, then overpowered a muscular man like Brockhurst and cut his throat?”

“She’s not exactly frail herself. Did Jim tell you what Brockhurst discovered in her cabin?” Stoney shook his head and Bill continued, “He found a connection between Maum Chrish and Sarah—Jim just told me about it tonight. Apparently there’s some writing all over the walls of her house and some of it happens to be the Jewish alphabet. You gotta admit, that’s an odd coincidence.”

“Yeah,” Stoney agreed slowly, “it is.”

“And you know Leonard’s got an alibi, don’t you? He was with Ricky Gibson the night Sarah was killed, Brockhurst checked it out.”

“And Ricky Gibson just happened to show up at the town meeting with proof against Maum Chrish. How convenient.”

“Look, I’m no fan of Leonard Hansen’s. But you don’t have anything even faintly resembling proof to connect him to either murder.”

“That’s true,” Stoney admitted. He drank down the last of his coffee. “I should get home.”

“Me too. I’ll walk you out.” They closed the door to Jim Leland’s office and ambled down the hall and out into the predawn darkness. “Think we’ll have enough energy to run this evening?”

“Better not count on me.” Stoney paused, then asked, “How come you came back to Essex when you finished school?”

“To be your running partner maybe?” The heavier man expelled a tired chuckle. “We’ve been up all night, so now you want to know my life story? I don’t know why I came back. My folks were here? Probably just to be ornery.”

“Come again?”

“I refused to turn the place over to the Heyward Rutherfords and Harriet Setzlers—not to mention the Leonard Hansens—of the world. I wanted to be around to annoy them.”

Bill waved and peeled off toward his newspaper van as Stoney approached his own Land Rover. Stoney got in and sat for a moment, rubbing his burning eyes. He drove home slowly, carefully watching the streets in front of him. Later, in the bedroom, he mumbled to Anna as he kissed her and fell instantly asleep with his clothes still on.

When Anna woke up the next morning, she could tell it was late by the angle of the sunlight streaming in the window. She reached to the other side of the bed and came up with only empty air. She got up and pulled on a terrycloth bathrobe and headed for the stairs to see if Stoney had let Silas out; if not, the dog was probably about to float away. When she got downstairs, Silas was nowhere to be found. However, chaotic moving sounds emanated from the basement.

“Stoney?” She crossed to the open basement door on the other side of the kitchen.

“Yeah. Down here. Sorry if I woke you.”

In a moment he stomped up the wood steps and put his arms around Anna and kissed her absently. “How was your trip?”

“Where were you all night?” Her tone was indignant and made her feel that much guiltier.

“At the motel, then at the town hall. I was too tired to talk about it last night.” He turned to go back down into the basement. “I’ll be up in a second.”

She stared down the stairs, at his disheveled clothes. Then she went over to the counter to make coffee. While it was brewing she heard him throwing things around, and she wondered how long it would take to straighten out down there once he was finished. Something heavy hit the basement floor and she jumped. Then she went to the basement door and yelled downstairs, “Are you all right? What are you looking for?”

“Found it.”

In a moment Stoney’s head poked through the basement doorway again. “Did you put Silas out?” Anna asked, turning toward him. Then she stopped, gasped. “What are you doing with that?”

Stoney held the dusty Marlin rifle his parents had given him when he was a kid. He looked at Anna. “Lou Brockhurst was murdered last night.”

“My God.” She sat down at the table. “What happened?”

“He was attacked at the motel. It was different from Sarah; the weapon was a knife but it was cleaner, more professional.” Stoney took the rifle and leaned it against the wall. “I want to show you how to use this.”

“No, Stoney. I will not live with a loaded gun in the house. You can’t want that either. I thought you hated that thing.”

His voice trembled. “Don’t you see we have no choice? Someone around here is killing people. I’m going to make damn sure the next victim isn’t you—or me.”

“This is so awful.” She crossed to him. “We lived in a violent city for years, yet it never felt like this.”

He put his arms around her. “We didn’t know the people it happened to. We didn’t really care.”

Over a breakfast of coffee and toast, Anna asked questions about Brockhurst’s murder and Maum Chrish’s possible arrest. Afterward Stoney went upstairs to shower and change. When he came back down in a pin-striped suit, she looked at him oddly. “What’s with the suit?”

“I have to meet with some people from out of town,” he said. “I’ll probably be late.”

He started for the back door. “Anna, keep the doors locked. Be careful.”

Inside the Rover Stoney put the vehicle in gear, yawning slightly, and headed down Laurens Avenue toward town and the highway. But he veered off to the right at the main intersection and stopped at the town hall; he’d just duck inside for a second and see what was going on. A small knot of people had gathered outside; apparently the news about Brockhurst was spreading fast. Everyone was waiting to see what would happen now. Stoney skirted the group and was almost to the steps when a hand tugged at the back of his jacket. He turned around to face a large boy pushing a Raleigh bicycle. “Hey, Mr. McFarland, they arrested that crazy swamp woman yet?”

“No, Donny,” Stoney said brusquely. Then he saw Seth Von Hocke, also standing beside a bike. “Hi, Seth.”

Seth regarded Stoney with large, troubled eyes.

“They’re gonna arrest her now, ain’t that right?” Donny motioned toward the town hall. “I been telling Seth no way she’ll get off now. Will they bring her back here?”

“I don’t know,” Stoney said.

Donny giggled, punched his smaller companion on the arm. “Seth wants to see her real bad. Dontcha, Seth?”

Seth flushed. He had given Donny his piggy bank, two years’ worth of quarters, in return for silence about his visits to Maum Chrish.

Stoney nodded at the boys and walked inside the building. When he entered Jim Leland’s office, the police chief was standing at the window looking down into the street. He was wearing a fresh khaki uniform but his face was haggard from lack of sleep and he didn’t return Stoney’s “good morning.”

“I’m waiting for Buck Henry,” Jim said. “We’re on our way to get Maum Chrish.” He tapped the legal document folded and tucked into his shirt pocket.

“Jim, you know what will happen.” Stoney thought momentarily of Monkey. “Everybody’s hysterical. Turner’s gone, so they want her. She won’t have a prayer in hell of getting a fair trial.”

“Why do you care so much? What the hell does that old woman mean to you?”

“Why don’t you care?”

“Because I know how things are. Because I’m smart enough not to argue with what I can’t change.” Silence. Then Jim turned back to Stoney. “But you aren’t giving us—the town—much credit, you know. I’d think a man who made a point of coming back here would be willing to give Essex the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she’ll be convicted—if it comes to that—simply because, in the best judgment of the jury, she’s guilty. Is that impossible? You want me not to arrest a viable suspect because she might not get a fair shake? What if she did it? You’d have me endanger everyone on the chance some of them can’t be impartial?”

“She didn’t do it, Jim.”

“Then prove who did.”

When Stoney left, Jim looked back out the window. People were talking loudly now, gesturing, most looking up at the window where he stood. He closed his eyes for a second and wished he’d wake up doing something else for a living. Why couldn’t he be a hunting guide out West like a fellow he’d met in the National Guard? Jim opened his eyes. But who the hell needed a guide around here? No, he’d stay a cop—only he never really thought of himself as a cop. Lou Brockhurst, limp and all, had been a cop. Jim’s eyes narrowed. And nobody could be allowed to kill cops. Nobody.

He heard the sheriff’s voice in the hall and picked up the shotgun and went out to meet the other man.

A few hours later Anna knocked on Marian’s front door. There wasn’t a soul on the tree-lined street and it was deathly quiet. Anna knocked again much louder.

Finally the door opened and Anna said, “Did you hear about Lou Brockhurst?”

Marian nodded, her eyes worried. Wearing a long purple caftan, she stepped back to let Anna into her living room. “Somebody called Harriet and she called me.”

“Stoney thinks Brockhurst figured out who killed Sarah and the killer knew it.” Anna hesitated. “They’ve got a warrant to arrest Maum Chrish.”

“Stoney thinks she did it?”

“No. But Jim Leland does.”

Marian closed her eyes and thought about her visit with her mother two days before. This could not be happening. “But they talked about arresting her after the town meeting and they never did.”

“It’s different this time.” Anna paused. “Did you go to see her? What happened?”

Marian could not talk about it yet, could not share her experience with Maum Chrish with anyone else. “It was—it was something I’ve been waiting for forever.” The black woman’s eyes looked distant, as though caught in another time.

Then Marian focused abruptly. “They can’t arrest her, Anna. We have to do something. She couldn’t kill anyone.”

The sudden certainty in Marian’s voice bolstered Anna’s confidence. She said, “You and Stoney and I are the only people in town who believe that.” Anna lowered her voice. “We could go out there. We could warn her. Tell her what’s happening. At the very least she’d have time to think what to do, to make plans.”

“She’d have time to get away,” Marian finished. But where would she go? Could she let her mother leave after she’d just found her? Could she let her go to jail? Marian crossed to the window and stared in the direction of Harriet’s house. She knew what Harriet would do. She turned to Anna. “This could be interpreted as obstruction of justice, you know.”

“Justice? You know better than I do why they’re going to arrest her. It doesn’t have much to do with justice. It has to do with fear and hatred.”

“I’ll change my clothes.”

Anna nodded and idly walked over to the window as Marian went down the hall. The sun was out, had finally pushed the interminable grayness of the past few weeks into hiding. When Marian reappeared, she was dressed in black slacks and a black T-shirt. Anna studied her for a moment. In the black clothes the honey-gold woman looked darker, more mysterious, more powerful. They barely spoke as they got in Marian’s small car and headed out of town. Marian kept her eyes on the road, as the humid wind rushed across them like a warm tide. The more the sun hit both women the more they perspired, and soon the black cloth against Marian’s back softened and clung to her skin.

She turned and noticed Anna looking at her. And they hurtled on down the highway.

Stoney was twenty miles outside town when he stopped at a roadside rest area and stared at the endless fields of corn. The stalks were brown on the edges, victims of the vicious drought. What had once been fertile farmland had now turned into an inhospitable environment, was killing itself from the bottom up. He gazed at his watch. He would never make his appointment on time. Begging for his job because of Sumter Brownlow’s petty sniveling was demeaning anyway. In light of what was happening in Essex, it seemed downright inconsequential.

He took off his jacket, loosened his tie, and headed back to Essex. Ten miles short of town, he turned off onto a dirt road and followed it past some trailers and several crumbling barns until he pulled up in front of Leonard Hansen’s house. Leonard’s truck was gone, so Stoney got out and walked toward the house. Apparently Leonard was at work, which was what he’d hoped for. If Jim wouldn’t search Leonard’s house, he would. There had to be something in there which gave him away.

Unless of course he was wrong about Leonard.

By midafternoon the news of the second murder in Essex had run through town like a wild deer, then it loped out into the far reaches of the county. We hadn’t truly recovered from Sarah’s murder yet but time had passed, so we were resting more easily in our beds when someone upended them again. True, we didn’t lose one of our own this time, someone we had known a long time, whose existence in that house on Aiken Avenue and in the store downtown was crucial to our memory of our own lives. No, our dismay wasn’t so personal this time. But it was a whole lot scarier. One incidence of violence could be considered an aberration, a freak occurrence, but two.… And a SLED agent no less, a professional trained to be on guard?

Years later we would all remember the few days after Lou Brockhurst’s murder as the time when Bill Jenkins published the most incredibly asinine editorial in the Essex Telegraph. All about some scientific study involving rats in a cage; seems the rodents got along fine until the scientist increased their number, crowded them up. Then the rats would invariably begin attacking each other. So the aggressive rats were taken out of the group and more docile ones were put in, but still some rats would turn on the others. When the scientist decreased the population, the aggression stopped. Every time. A lack of something (space, whatever) turned the least tolerant violent. Not one of us liked that editorial. We didn’t give a damn why some rats attacked others, we just wanted murderers caught and locked up forever. We asked Bill what overpopulation had to do with a town where you were lucky if you saw five people on the street at one time. Bill said that if we were a larger town we’d have had more crime before this, that it was our size which had granted us immunity for so many years. We said, oh how reassuring, thank you very much indeed.

Theorists we needed about as much as we needed a hotter summer. What we needed was for this madness to stop. Now the man we’d trusted to accomplish this was dead. Obviously the killer wasn’t a loony preying on old women. He (she?) hadn’t stolen this time either. Nothing had been taken from Lou Brockhurst’s room; his watch, gold class ring, even his wallet with over a hundred dollars in it was with his body. Brockhurst had not been killed with a hunting knife; instead, Ed would say later, it was probably a switchblade or a long thin kitchen knife. Was there one murderer in Essex or two? That question remained uppermost in our minds for days afterward and most of us finally decided it must be one person—who had killed Sarah and was afraid Brockhurst would find out, and so had to kill again for protection. Perfectly logical theory, assuming the killer was logical.

For some of us, J. T. Turner would have been the murderer of choice, but J. T. Turner could not be found. Anywhere. If he had been found, perhaps the events of the next few days might not have happened. It was Marynell Pittman who started talking about Maum Chrish again. About how big and strong the black woman looked, how she’d probably cut the throat of any number of God’s animal creatures. Suddenly everybody was remembering the goat and what happened at Sarah’s funeral. Then we heard that Jim Leland was going to arrest the swamp woman, and that fact virtually proved her guilt—when was the last time Jim Leland arrested anybody? Soon rumors clamored for attention like little boys trying to beat each other to the top of a hill. Leland must have found out something new about her, about Maum Chrish, and now they were bringing her in. Maybe now we’d get to the bottom of this. Maybe now—finally—it would end.

If only it’d been that simple.

The swamp lazed at the full height of its senses when Marian and Anna arrived there. Insects buzzed atop the black-green pools of water and the water’s surface reflected the outlines of the trees above as well as the rounded shoulders of clouds floating overhead, all suffused with mesmerizing waterborne movement that transported both women instantly. Was the water moving—or did the clouds just make it appear so? Along the bank where they stood, red-passion wildflowers spilled over the edge like honey, and bees hovered at the open-faced yellow lilies which bloomed at the feet of giant oaks half-submerged in water. A monarch butterfly danced by, then rested in the green-yellow reeds that flapped back and forth in the water like bamboo windchimes.

Breaking a law or a taboo with someone invites a rare camaraderie and so the two women moved in harmonious unison. Their worlds had intersected at this corner of a shared nightmare that now eclipsed history. Right now they were not a black woman and a white woman whose ancestry had been bitterly entwined, right now they were compatriots. And so, with the sun behind them as they walked, their shadows fell into the water together and, refracted on its glassy surface, merged until one silhouette could barely be distinguished from the other.

“I’m afraid for her,” Marian said suddenly.

Anna reached out and squeezed her friend’s hand. “Don’t worry, we’ll find her first.”

All her adult life Marian had prided herself on her loyalty, veracity, honesty. She knew she and Anna were interfering in an arrest and yet it felt perfectly sane to be doing so. The troublesome part was how easy it was—what else might she do if pushed far enough? Marian gazed over at Anna as they moved deeper into the woods. For Anna, it wasn’t even blood, it was principle. She suspected both of them shared an unspoken belief—an irrational certainty that an incarcerated Maum Chrish would almost surely die.

When they got to the clearing, they ran up the steps of the cabin and looked through the open door. Marian called out, then strode into the room and crossed to the bedroom. When she returned, she said anxiously, “You think they’ve already come for her?”

“I don’t know,” Anna said. “Let’s look outside.” But she was worried about how quiet everything was. The swamp was too placid. As though what gave it its force, its power, was missing.

They searched the yard, skirted the garden which was verdant despite the drought and examined the fire that still smoldered in its usual place. Anna walked to the edge of the clearing, gazed into the dark water at her feet, and saw her face in a patch of sunlight on its surface. Marian looked beyond the woods on both sides of the house, wandered farther off down the river. As in her visit there with Maum Chrish, the more she walked along the river, walked away from the town, the younger she felt.

Then she stopped sharply, on the edge of a grassy knoll. Her eyes widened, riveted to the scene inside the stand of oaks. A white boy and a black girl whom she knew were obliviously making love. Marian started to turn around but then she saw Anna and put a finger to her lips. Thinking of Maum Chrish, Anna gazed inside the shelter of oaks. Transfixed, she watched the boy and girl for a moment. Then, still unseen, the two women backed away quietly.

Marian and Anna walked back to the far side of the cabin, out of earshot, and sat down in the grass along the bank of the river. Here the water rippled slightly, bubbled across the organic debris that had fallen from the trees, coming toward them, then retreating, as they sat in silence, their thoughts on the young couple. Both women were suddenly shy, afraid of speaking. Watching two people make love was almost as intimate as watching each other.

Finally Anna said, “I guess we should wait a little longer to see if she comes.” Her eyes opened wide. “Maum Chrish. If she comes home.”

Marian laughed out loud.

“You know what I meant.”

They grew silent, linked now in a different way, as the swamp enclosed them in its lacy web.

“Think it’s their first time?” Anna asked, surprised at her frankness. “I wish mine had been like that.”

Marian looked over at her. “Think there’s ever a great way the first time?”

“There are better ways and worse ways.” Anna gazed at Marian. “What I mean is, I wish my first love had been someone my own age. Another kid who cared about me.” She stopped abruptly, looked out at the river, and then boiled over angrily, “I wish it hadn’t been a slick older guy who got off on controlling women too young to know better.” Above Anna the live oaks took on the sharp, unforgiving outlines of Atlanta maples. “First he made me emotionally dependent on him, then he seduced me, then he virtually blackmailed me into continuing the relationship. And I was crazy about him. Sometimes I think I’ll never be free of him, that he’s going to ruin the rest of my life too.” Anna felt Marian’s eyes on her and she looked up. “What is it?”

“I was raped my first time—not far from here.”

For a long moment they looked at each other. “Oh my God, Marian,” Anna said finally. “I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought this up.”

Marian held up her hand to fend off sympathy. “It’s okay. What you said hit a chord. Blackmail.” Marian paused and looked behind her, wishing Maum Chrish would show up. Then she turned back to Anna. “It was a white guy, about my age but bigger. I was only sixteen, living in Harriet’s house, feeling more white than black. I started meeting him out here to get drunk, like kids do in high school. A white boy in a dry county could always get booze and for a while I became something of a tippler. Which I kept hidden from Harriet except once or twice when it got out of control, I knew Harriet wouldn’t tolerate anybody drinking.”

Marian was quiet for a second. “I’d been meeting him for a while and then he started—in my world we’d say ‘messing’ with me. I didn’t pay much attention, I just liked getting tipsy; after a while it was pretty clear he really hated black people. Anyway, one night he was different—he’d had too much whiskey. He kept saying how I was asking for it.” Marian rolled her eyes. “Don’t you love that line? I gave him the bottle back and said I had to go home. He went into a tirade about how I wanted to get my ‘filthy black hands all over his white dick’—so I started running.” Marian swallowed, her eyes bereft of self-pity. “He tackled me from behind and it was all over in two horrible minutes.”

“Jesus Christ.”

No one spoke for a few seconds. Then Anna asked, “Did you tell anyone?”

Marian stared at her hands, at the tense knuckles covered with sweat. She got up and walked over to stand beside the river, her back to Anna. She didn’t want to talk about the rest.

“You didn’t tell anybody?”

Marian whirled around. “Anna, he did it four times. Who was going to believe four times was rape? Who was going to believe a black girl over a white boy?”

“He raped you four times?”

Marian threw her head back. “See? Even you don’t believe it. You think I must have let him do it, don’t you? Don’t you?”

Anna was on her feet too. “Marian—”

“Admit it. It wasn’t rape. Was it?”

Anna grabbed Marian and shook her. “Stop it! I wouldn’t think that. You know I wouldn’t.”

Marian pulled away, turned her back on Anna again.

“Let me tell you something,” Anna cried. “I didn’t know we were telling the whole truth, almost no one ever does. I got used over and over again, Rand Ayres treated me like a puppet. He’d call and there I’d be—legs open, ready to believe whatever he told me. You know why?” Anna’s voice trembled, rose sharply. “It wasn’t just because I loved him, it was also because I loved getting laid. I loved doing it. But I was scared of being a bad girl. He said he loved me, so I could screw him. And I did, no matter what he did to me. I’m not sure I ever really enjoyed it, but I got off on thinking someone like him wanted me—I was trained since birth to think I was nothing without a man. Rand manipulated me sexually, I knew he was doing it and I let him do it; somehow it gave me a perverted sense of self-worth.”

When Marian responded, her voice was thick and twisted, “You were the victim in a power game, Anna; that makes all of us irrational. Take my case. He hated niggers, he even told me that once, but he just had to have one. We were easier to get. Later—after the first time—I got so I felt masochistic revenge in seeing his eyes so full of lust for the very thing he hated. By then, I had no choice anyway. After a while I began to think I was as sick as he was.” The black woman took a deep breath but her voice broke when she continued, “What I hate most is why I kept giving in. I took something from Harriet’s house once, just once, in anger, a sterling comb that belonged to Mr. William and just sat in a drawer, people always said a black would steal if given half the chance and so I did, I gave the comb to him to sell to get booze—this was before he raped me the first time—and he recognized the initials on it and knew where it came from. He didn’t sell it, he kept it. After he raped me, he told me if I told anyone, he’d take the comb to Harriet and tell her what I’d done. That I’d stolen from her. I knew she’d throw me out. She was kind to me but stern—she did not tolerate those who lied or cheated or stole. I would be orphaned a second time.”

“What finally happened?”

“I gave him what he wanted. Until one night he went too far—humiliated me beyond words, beat me up. I planned to run away. But then his family suddenly moved out of town.”

They were both silent again. Marian glanced back at Maum Chrish’s shack. “I always thought none of that would have happened if I’d had my mother. You think that sort of thing when you’re young.” She hesitated, briefly remembering her afternoon this past week with Maum Chrish. Then she stood up. “Where is she? God, I hope we haven’t come out here on a wild-goose chase. Too little too late.” The last words made her think suddenly of Sadie Thompkins. The only person in town who had recognized Lonnie Davis.

“Let’s wait a little longer,” Anna said. “Maybe she’ll show up. If we can’t find her, they can’t either.”

Marian smiled at Anna. “You know, when I first met you, I didn’t like you very much. You’re probably going to hit me, but I think Essex has been good for you. When you came here, you were one of those people who go around sampling things without any of it ever affecting them. They touch without feeling, eat without tasting, listen without hearing. They ‘see’ everything with intellectual detachment. But you’ve changed.”

Anna laughed. “Well, I certainly don’t feel new and improved. In fact, I don’t understand why I do things anymore or what they mean. I think I want one thing but then I get close to it and that doesn’t seem to be what I want at all. You’re about the only person I can talk to these days.”

“Why’s that?” Marian was thinking about Stoney, whom she deemed one of the good men of the world.

“I guess because between us there are no expectations, no danger of misreadings.”

Misreadings? What she doesn’t know, Marian thought. Again she glanced at Maum Chrish’s cabin, hoping for a sign of the older woman.

Anna was gazing at Marian apologetically, as though begging off for a coming impertinence. “Did being raped affect you later? You know, in other relationships?”

“Maybe a bit in the beginning,” Marian said. “Not anymore.”

“I guess what I’m saying is—you seem so comfortable with yourself, about who you are, about sex too.”

Now the black woman laughed abruptly. “You mean I look like I’ve taken responsibility for my own orgasms?”

Anna giggled. “What?”

“Didn’t you see Tootsie? Remember the scene where the girl says that to Dustin Hoffman?”

“Not really. But it should be that way, don’t you think? I mean, I remember my first real affair after Rand, I always felt like I was having to put on a performance so the guy would feel like a great lover—as if my sexuality and everything connected to it belonged to him.” Out of loyalty, Anna did not mention Stoney’s name.

Marian took a deep breath. “But when you start saying my orgasms are mine, I do it all, that’s a power trip too. Sex is no good unless everyone gets beyond ego. If you’re going to be that distant from the person you’re making love to, you might as well just have sex by yourself. Don’t you think? It’s like when you always wait for the other person to make the move. Playing the indifferent gatekeeper—a biological role we’ve inevitably ended up with—is an exercise of power too.”

In a second Marian added, “I’ve thought about this for a long time and a lot of it really is biology, I think—men are programmed to breed indiscriminately, but women are programmed to be more careful about it. After all, it has far greater consequences for the female. So she becomes gatekeeper, deciding when is the best time. That’s an exercise of power over him, which stems in large part from her biological as well as her emotional nature, and he resents it. We’re keeping him from getting what he wants. So over the years men have invented ways to exert their own sexual power over us, to pay us back. The most obvious power he uses is rape—I’ll take what you won’t give. There’s economic power—I’ll support you but you must sleep with me regularly. Or psychological power—you should be a good mother and stay home with your children rather than forging a career. Or, if you don’t give me what I want often enough, I’ll find another woman who will.”

Anna was quiet for a long time. “Well, what do you do to get around all that?” Had she and Stoney unconsciously fallen into their own role-playing?

“Anna, I don’t have all the answers. I’m just now getting the questions straight.”

“Well, what is it that makes your relationships work now?”

“I don’t think that will help you.”

“How do you know?”

Marian sighed. She looked down at the river for a moment, then turned back to Anna and said slowly, “Because now all my lovers are women.”

Anna went completely dumb.

“No one else in Essex knows this, of course,” Marian added. “I might lose my job if anyone did. There’s someone I see in Charleston. I wasn’t planning to tell you but I can’t be dishonest.”

Finally Anna found her voice. “I had no idea.”

“I know. It’s a pretty invisible thing in this part of the world. I don’t tell many people.”

“I don’t know what to say.” Anna paused, then asked, “Is it different, the power thing I mean?”

Marian looked over at Anna. “You really want to know?”

“Yeah, I do.”

The black woman smiled a long slow smile that began at her mouth and rose to her cheeks like a blush. “Now I understand why you and Stoney are right together.” When Anna looked startled, Marian went on, “Stoney probably doesn’t remember this but one night when I was drinking out in the swamps, I got picked up later by the sheriff who brought me back to Harriet’s in the middle of the night, threatening to throw me in jail. It was a real scene and Stoney saw the whole thing, the sheriff woke up half the neighborhood. The next day some of the kids who heard about it started calling me names on the sidewalk and Stoney came along and strutted up to me like a good friend and said, ‘Hiya, Marian, whatcha doin’?’ Not one word about what he’d seen the night before.”

“Marian, you know it doesn’t make any difference to me.”

“I know a lot of people say that.”

Anna put her hand on Marian’s arm and stared levelly at her. “But I mean it.” Then Anna turned to gaze at Maum Chrish’s cabin. “It’s getting late. What do you think we should do?”

They walked back over to the clearing and rechecked the woods on either side of the house; then they met again at the front porch.

“Anna, I’m scared. I’m afraid they’ve either found her or else she got wind of it and has already taken off. What if she doesn’t come back? I’ve got to know where she is.”

Anna didn’t answer. They sat down on the porch steps and waited another hour. Marian went inside the cabin at one point and sat cross-legged on the floor, her eyes closed. When she came back out, she said, “Let’s go. We’re not going to find her here.”

“How do you know? How can you be sure she won’t just suddenly show up?”

“I just know. I feel it. Come on.”

Together they walked back into the woods.